Looking for Laura, page 9
“A CD player.”
“Fine.” Sally ducked back into the garage for a moment, then returned, still carrying the car seat. Her voluminous straw tote bag dangled by its straps from her forearm, and her broad-brimmed straw hat was going to block his side vision if she insisted on wearing it in the car. She also had on one of her billowy dresses, a soft blue shade that seemed to mirror the cloudless spring sky, white anklets and leather sandals.
He watched with increasing apprehension as she swung open the back door of his car, arranged Rosie’s seat and set her straw hat on the leather upholstery next to it. “Okay, Rosie—hop in!” she hollered to the kid, who seemed to have vanished. “Rosie? Rosie!”
The girl darted into view from the side of the house. “I was just saying goodbye to Trevor,” she explained as she climbed into the seat. Sally belted her into place and straightened up.
Todd felt trapped. Sure, she’d been generous, but that didn’t give her the right to subject him to her child for a long drive. Especially when the child had on a stupid purple hat. What was it with these Driver women and their hats?
He was not a hat person. His hair was too thick. It felt clumpy under a hat—and when the hat was removed, his hair looked even clumpier. Sally’s straw hat seemed to have had a negligible effect on her hair, which flowed down her back in long, undisciplined ripples of red-tinged brown.
She made herself ominously at home in the passenger seat, arranging her skirt, propping her tote on the floor beneath the glove compartment, smoothing the shoulder belt between her breasts and folding her hands in her lap. Shoving his misgivings to a vacant corner of his brain, he got in behind the wheel, revved the engine aggressively—just in case Sally had any questions about how powerful his beloved car was—and backed out of her driveway.
She’s doing you a favor, he reminded himself. She’s cutting you in on her deal. That fact only added to his irritation, however. It pissed the hell out of him that she’d gotten information from Patty Pleckart, information he’d failed to get. For God’s sake, he’d been Patty Pleckart’s lover in high school, more or less. Why had Patty given the answer to Sally and not him?
Either because he hadn’t posed the right questions and Sally had, or else because his performance with Patty in high school had been so excruciatingly bad she was still punishing him for it all these years later.
“Where exactly in Boston are we going?” he asked.
“Just drive into town. We’ll figure it out from there,” Sally said.
Her vagueness stoked his dread. “I like to know where I’m going.”
“I bet you never ask for directions, either.” She twisted in her seat to check out the kid. “Are you okay, Rosie?”
“I’m bored,” Rosie replied.
Terrific. They hadn’t even reached the town limits, and Rosie was already bored. In another ten minutes, she’d probably be screaming at the top of her lungs. In fifteen, she’d be trying to climb out the window. Where was the child-lock button for the back-seat windows? He knew there was a switch somewhere that would prevent Rosie from opening them, but he had no idea where it was. Before today, the button had been irrelevant to his life.
Sally turned forward, dug through her bag and pulled out a compact disc. She scrutinized his dashboard and pressed the radio power button. “Good Vibrations” blasted through the rear speakers, causing Rosie to shriek.
He twisted the volume dial to a quieter setting. Obviously, the child’s delicate eardrums couldn’t withstand classic rock.
“You listen to The Beach Boys?” Sally asked incredulously.
“It’s up to the deejay what I listen to,” he said. He wasn’t going to defend his choice in radio stations to her. She probably liked New Age stuff, gongs and bells and flute-voiced women chanting holistic gibberish. He loved rock. Any kind, old, new or in between. Every FM button on his car radio was set to a rock station.
If Sally’s CD had gongs and bells and flute-voiced women on it, Todd was going to object, loudly and firmly.
She studied the radio’s controls long enough to figure out how to make the CD tray slide out. “I hope you don’t mind,” she thought to mention before inserting the CD. He braced himself for gongs.
Instead he heard the strum of an acoustic guitar, and a chipper male voice embark on a cute, bouncy jingle: “I’m a porcupine and I’m okay, just as long as you stay away…”
“What the hell is that?”
“‘Animal Sweet,’” she told him.
“What the hell is ‘Animal Sweet’?”
“They sing songs about animals. Sweet is a pun—it’s like the songs are a suite. S-U-I-T-E,” she clarified, maybe for Rosie’s sake. Todd was a newspaper editor; he knew how to spell.
They’d reached the Mass Pike. He had never in his life suffered from motion disturbance, but the prospect of driving east for the next hour and a half listening to songs about animals gave him an idea of what car sickness might feel like. “You’d rather listen to this than The Beach Boys?”
“It’s Rosie’s favorite CD.”
“Rosie’s taste in music sucks.”
Sally glanced over her shoulder again, as if concerned that Rosie might have heard this unforgivable insult. She couldn’t have heard it; she was singing along with the CD. “‘I’m spiny and shiny and whiny sometimes, I’m sticky and tricky and prickly sometimes, and I’m a porcupine all-l-l-l-l the time!’” Her voice was lusty and painfully flat.
“She’s only five,” Sally whispered, turning back to him.
“You shouldn’t have brought her along.”
“She loves Boston.”
“She’s only five,” he said, tossing Sally’s words back at her. “How can she love Boston?”
Sally’s fingers curled palmward and she pursed her lips. “The truth is, she’s never been to downtown Boston before. It’s important for children to visit cities. I never saw a city until I was fourteen—and the city was Albany, New York, so it hardly counted. I want my daughter to grow up exposed to different things.”
So far, her daughter had been exposed to a flaky mother and a two-timing father. Compared with them, Boston was safe and dull. “You never saw a city until you were fourteen?”
“I never went anywhere.”
“Why not?”
Sally sighed. “I wasn’t…” Another sigh. He let his gaze stray from the highway long enough to catch a glimpse of her faint, wistful smile. “I wasn’t raised the way you were. Or Paul. I grew up in a trailer behind my grandparents’ house in a little podunk town forty miles from Albany. There was nothing to do there, nowhere to go. People watched television, they shopped at the local stores, and for excitement they tried to come up with ways to separate the tourists from their money.”
“Tourists?”
“Trout fishermen. I grew up in trout country.”
Trout country. He hadn’t known such a thing existed.
“We had some of the finest trout rivers in the world running through our area. People would come from all over to fish. The local stores would overcharge them for everything. A ten-dollar hamburger. A five-dollar glass of beer.”
“It sounds like Boston,” he commented. “Except for the trout.”
“Anyway, I think Rosie should be raised with a broader perspective on things. She should know that a universe exists beyond Winfield, and it’s hers to explore.” Sally sighed yet again. “Besides,” she said in a quieter voice, as if Rosie might hear over the cloying “Animal Sweet” music that filled the car, “I want this Laura person to see Paul’s daughter. I want her to see what she was jeopardizing: the happiness of the sweetest, brightest, most vulnerable little girl in the world.”
Sweet, bright and vulnerable were not words he would use to describe Rosie Driver. She struck him more as the kind of girl who believed the whole wide world existed for the sole purpose of giving her something to explore.
He sent another quick look Sally’s way. A trailer dweller from trout country. Why hadn’t he known this? Why hadn’t Paul told him? Had Paul been afraid Todd would sneer?
He wasn’t that narrow-minded, even if he did drive a Snob—a Saab. And he hadn’t had to know about Sally’s deprived background to sneer at her. He’d done ample sneering based on the assumption that she was a waitress who’d conned his best friend into marrying her. Which she was.
But never to have seen a city until she was fourteen? And then to lose her urban virginity to Albany? It was almost tragic.
They drove for a while in silence—or at least, as much silence as could exist with “Animal Sweet” resonating from Todd’s top-of-the-line Bose speakers. A new song began: “Why get a puppy when you can get a guppy?”
“This music is really bad,” he muttered.
“I didn’t have to tell you about Laura Hawkes,” Sally reminded him just a touch defensively.
“If you’d gone into Boston alone, you would have botched it. You need me here with you to make sure the whole thing doesn’t get fucked up.”
“Number one, I don’t need you here, there or anywhere. And number two, watch your language. Rosie’s only five.”
“I know how old she is,” he retorted, though he silently pledged to avoid swearing around the kid. “And you do need me. Your car would have died somewhere west of Worcester. It’s not fit for long-distance driving.”
“How do you know that?”
“Paul told me.”
“He told you my car wasn’t fit for long-distance driving?”
“He told me it wasn’t fit for a run to the supermarket.”
“He never mentioned his concerns to me.” She lapsed into thought for a moment. “Do you suppose he wanted my car to die on me?”
Good question. If Paul had been concerned enough about the condition of Sally’s car to discuss it with Todd, why hadn’t he discussed it with Sally? Why hadn’t he suggested that she ditch the car and buy herself something more reliable? It wasn’t as if they couldn’t afford a new vehicle.
Had he wanted Sally to get stranded somewhere? Had he wanted her to wind up on the shoulder of a road, trying to flag down a passing motorist for help because her car had given up the ghost? What if she’d been picked up by a sicko, a demented road warrior looking for someone to rape and then slaughter? Was that what Paul had wanted for his wife?
Or had he simply been making snide jokes about her car—as Todd recalled, Paul had described it as something that might pass for a lawn ornament in certain less enlightened parts of Appalachia—as a substitute for making snide jokes about her?
Even without Laura added into the mix, Paul hadn’t been a faithful, respectful husband to Sally. A faithful, respectful husband would have taken his wife to Kendrick Ford-Porsche-Toyota or Route-9 Buick-Audi-Mitsubishi and bought her a new car.
Todd suffered a twinge of sympathy for Sally—and disloyalty toward his friend. Fortunately, it passed before he could analyze it.
“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Rosie shouted from the back seat, between verses about a cute newt in a camouflage suit.
“We’re not stopping,” he warned Sally.
“Of course not.” Sally rummaged through her bag and removed a box of animal crackers. Amazing, he thought: the beasts Rosie didn’t butcher with her ghastly singing she could butcher with her teeth. If she misbehaved during this outing, he’d report her to some fanatical animal-rights group. They’d know what to do with her.
“So what exactly is our plan once we get into the city?” he asked, trying to sift the emotion from his voice. He didn’t want to be experiencing exasperation, pity or anything else in relation to the Driver women. Like the well-trained journalist he was, he preferred to remain dispassionate.
“Let’s worry about getting there first.”
“I’m not worried about getting there. I’m worried about what we’ll do once we’re there.”
“Find a parking space, I suppose. The last time I was in Boston, that took over an hour.”
“Why didn’t you park in a garage?”
“I couldn’t find any. We weren’t in the downtown area. We were in a part of town called Brighton. Remember, Rosie?” she called over her shoulder.
Rosie was too busy singing along to hear her.
“Why were you in Brighton?” he asked Sally. He wasn’t sure where Brighton was, except that it wasn’t a neighborhood he’d ever bothered to visit while he was in Boston.
“I needed to buy some Chinese herbs. There’s a fabulous shop in Brighton, Ying’s Emporium.”
Of course. Didn’t everybody drive two hours to Boston so they could buy herbs at Ying’s Emporium? “What were you going to do with those Chinese herbs?” he asked.
She opened her mouth and then shut it. From the corner of his eye he noticed a flush tinge her cheeks. “None of your business,” she mumbled.
Curiosity rose like lava inside him, hot and thick. “Were you going to poison him?” he guessed, keeping his voice down in case the cute-newt ditty ended and Rosie heard them in the silence between songs.
“Of course not!” Sally whispered. “Why would I want to poison him?”
“Because he was seeing Laura behind your back.”
“I didn’t know about Laura until it was too late to poison him.”
True. “So what did you need the herbs for?”
“A recipe.”
“For what? Moo goo gai pan?”
Again her mouth flapped open and shut. Again her cheeks darkened. “A brew that was supposed to have…aphrodisiac qualities.”
“Ah.” He passed a sluggish eighteen-wheeler, then stole a look at her while he was checking his side mirror. She’d driven all the way to Boston to purchase ingredients for an aphrodisiac. She really must have wanted to turn Paul on. Maybe she’d sensed Paul withdrawing from her—saving his best stuff for Laura—and she’d hoped the aphrodisiac would help her win him back. Or maybe she’d wanted it for herself. Maybe her sex drive had evaporated, and that was why Paul had turned to another woman. Todd liked that explanation; it let Paul off the hook.
Only so much, though. It might justify Paul’s having the affair, but not his refusal to tell his best friend about it. The guy was still a shit for locking Todd out of his life that way.
Besides, Todd wasn’t a big fan of infidelity. He couldn’t justify it, even if Sally had been frigid or aloof—which he couldn’t imagine, given that she seemed to boast an overabundance of passion. Anger, indignation, aggressive self-certainty, maternal righteousness…passion.
He glanced at the slow truck he’d passed, now receding in his rearview mirror. He glanced at the buildup of traffic where the main feeder from Hartford and New York City merged with the Mass Pike, the blur of grass and trees lining the roadway, the signs warning of tolls, exits and rest stops—anywhere but at Sally. Surely she’d need more than a few Chinese herbs to turn herself into a love goddess. He tried to envision her in something slinky, but she wasn’t a slinky woman. She had too many curves. A big bosom, a rounded ass, wide shoulders. All that voluptuous hair spilling down her back. He couldn’t visualize her in a teddy, a garter belt, anything from the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Maybe a satin robe, wine red, held shut by a sash around her waist. Nothing on underneath. Maybe first she’d take a hot, steamy bath in a tub full of scented oils—or Chinese herbs from Ying’s Emporium. And then she’d sprawl out on a bed in that satin robe, and sip a cup of Chinese-herb tea, and shift her long legs…
She did have long legs. A less observant man might not have noticed, since she was always wearing shapeless below-the-knees dresses that did nothing to flaunt whatever assets she had. But judging by her stride and the sway of her hips, Todd could tell her legs were long. Long legs on a woman were his idea of an aphrodisiac.
Not that Sally had ever made him feel anything other than loathing. And pity, since she’d been shafted by her dead husband. And maybe a little kinship, since he’d been shafted by her dead husband, too.
And curiosity about the Chinese herbs. Okay. He’d cop to curiosity.
“How much longer till we get there?” Rosie asked. “I’m bored.”
“You know, this music is really boring,” he pointed out, aiming his comments at Rosie even though he couldn’t look at her. “How about if we listen to some rock and roll? You like rock and roll?”
“I like Nirvana,” she said.
There was hope for the kid. “Open the glove compartment,” he ordered Sally. “There’s a Nirvana CD in there.”
“I don’t like Nirvana,” she muttered.
“You’ve been outvoted,” Todd informed her, wondering if the music they’d been listening to had been her choice and not Rosie’s all along.
By the time they passed the I-495 exit, Todd and Rosie were singing along to “Polly Want a Cracker.” Rosie faked most of the words, which was probably just as well.
Sally excavated in her tote bag until she found a pair of sunglasses, and slid them on. They were elliptical and nearly opaque, and they lent her an unexpected glamour. The next song came on, and when he kept silent he could hear that Rosie was definitely faking the lyrics—but that was all right. Let her fake it while he contemplated the woman at his side, a woman who brewed X-rated potions and wore chichi sunglasses. A woman who refused to relinquish her dignity, such as it was, even after her husband had betrayed her.
A woman who didn’t like Nirvana, he reminded himself.
They passed through the final tollgate. Boston’s skyline loomed, a silhouette of dark gray towers that, from a distance, offered little to distinguish it from most other midsize cities. He knew once they got into downtown Boston that perception would change. The bland, boxy skyscrapers camouflaged a world of redbrick and brownstone, arching trees and street lights that resembled gas lamps, convoluted roadways designed three hundred fifty years ago as cow paths, mass-transit trains that borrowed the public streets and stopped at the red lights, then vanished into underground tunnels. Boston was a quirky city, and he appreciated its quirks.
He didn’t like getting lost in it, however. “Where are we going?” he asked, hoping that now that they were breathing city air, Sally would clue him in on their destination.
